georg baselitz — eugène leroy oct. 11, 2013 to feb. 24, 2014

GEORG BASELITZ — EUGÈNE LEROY
NARRATIVE AND CONDENSATION
OCT. 11, 2013 TO FEB. 24, 2014
Georg Baselitz, Meine gelbe Periode III [My Yellow Period III], 1997,
Oil on canvas, 200 x 162 cm, Würth Museum © Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo: DR
Eugène Leroy, Self-portrait, 1970, oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm,
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing Donated by Eugène Jean and
Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009 © MUba Eugène Leroy, 2013 Photo: Florian Kleinefenn
PRESS TRIP I THURSDAY 10 OCT. 2013 I 3.00 PM & 4.30 PM
INAUGURATION I FRIDAY 11 OCT. 2013 I 6.30 PM
CONTACT PRESS
NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL PRESS
REGIONAL PRESS
Heymann, Renoult Associées
www.heymann-renoult.com
T. +33 (0)1 44 61 76 76
r.gruet@heymann-renoult.com
Quentin Réveillon
MUba Eugène Leroy
T. +33 (0)3 20 23 33 59
qreveillon@ville-tourcoing.fr
MUba
Eugène
Tourcoing
Leroy
I
2, rue Paul Doumer
F-59200 Tourcoing
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 60
F. +33 (0)3 20 76 61 57
contact@muba-tourcoing.fr
www.muba-tourcoing.fr
_CONTENTS
3 FOREWORD
Evelyne-Dorothée Allemand
5 PRESS RELEASE
6 GEORG BASELITZ – EUGÈNE LEROY I A MEETING WITH NO OTHER EFFECT
THAN A (MAGNIFICENT) EXPANSION OF THE FIELD OF VISION – Extracts
Rainer Michael Mason
9 THIS WAY AND THAT IN EUGÈNE LEROY (AND GEORG BASELITZ) – Extracts
Georg Baselitz in conversation with Rainer Michael Mason
10 EXHIBITION LAYOUT
11 BIOGRAPHIES
Georg Baselitz
Eugène Leroy
14 LIST OF WORKS EXHIBITED
17 CATALOGUE
18 ABOUT THE EXHIBITION – CULTURAL PROGRAMME
20 PRESS VISUALS
Georg Baselitz
Eugène Leroy
23 USEFUL INFORMATION
24 EXHIBITION PARTNERS
25 LE MUba EUGÈNE LEROY
26 LA C’ART – UNLIMITED MUSEUM ENTRY
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_FOREWORD
Evelyne-Dorothée Allemand
Director, Chief Curator MUba Eugène Leroy I Tourcoing
Georg Baselitz—with Rembrandt van Rijn, Giorgione, Peter Paul Rubens and Piet Mondrian—was
the name most often mentioned by Eugène Leroy in conversation, and the name that comes up just
as regularly in the writings of art historians recounting the life and work of the French artist. Baselitz
was very much impressed—is impressed still—by Leroy as Leroy was by Baselitz. The German
artist’s first encounter with Leroy’s painting took place at a solo show by the Frenchman at the
historic Claude Bernard Gallery in Paris in 1961. At that show Baselitz both discovered Leroy’s
painting and introduced Michael Werner to it, at a time when Baselitz and Werner were still young
students. Baselitz felt a shock, he has said, that of having seen something truly other, unmistakably
different: “I found Leroy because I was looking, I was on a voyage of discovery, I wanted to find
something which I had had no idea of before. And so I found [it]”. Baselitz and Werner were “also
impressed by a large self-portrait exhibited by Pierre Langlois in his shop in the Passage SaintAndré-des-Arts, among his primitive-art objects” (“Biographie,” Eugène Leroy, Bernard Marcadé.
Paris: Flammarion, 1994, p. 183).
Today we can say that Georg Baselitz and Michael Werner, a gallery owner since 1963, played a
major role in promoting Leroy’s work in Germany and beyond, and continue to contribute to its
appreciation and renown. This encounter with the work, and much later—in 1990—the man, along
with the two artists’ admiration for each other, seemed to us well worth examining as part of an
exhibition in Tourcoing. Three years after the 2010 centenary exhibition Eugène Leroy - Exposition
du centenaire, MUba Eugène Leroy l Tourcoing owed it to itself to devote a show first and foremost
to Georg Baselitz in a museum that is now considered the paramount center for the artist Eugène
Leroy, an exhibition venue for his works and, finally, a site for scientific, artistic and historical
research dedicated to his creative output. It is from this urge to meet, to share and to engage with
the art that we conceived and founded, following the arrival of the Bequest, a Eugène Leroy
Laboratory, a space where his oeuvre is continually questioned by direct comparison with the work
of many others, both old masters and contemporaries of Leroy, including Jan Breughel the Elder,
Rembrandt van Rijn, Jean Fautrier, and Sol LeWitt. It is a space for reflection that has the capacity to
transform the eye, one’s actual gaze, and to (re)construct it symbolically, physically and visually.
The project that has led to the present show was set in motion when we met Baselitz and Detlev
Gretenkort, the artist’s secretary. The possibility of a comparison with Leroy’s painting was
dismissed from the solo show under consideration at the time. However, thanks to Rainer Michael
Mason, chosen by common consent for both scientific considerations and his long relationship with
Baselitz as both a friend and an exhibition curator, the German embraced the current show as
indeed a dialogue between two artists. But then the question arose of how to construct a show when
everything about the two participants seemed to set them at odds. Dare indeed to bring together
Baselitz, “the most French of German painters,” and Leroy “one of the most Northern (or Flemish) of
French painters,” as Mason points out. Very different artists who are nonetheless linked essentially
by Baselitz’s faithful, attested and confirmed attachment to Leroy, even if the former can be fairly
critical with respect to the French painter. It is under the beautiful and evocative title “narrative and
condensation” that Mason has organized the show: “Georg Baselitz, the Proteus of German
painting” for nearly fifty years now, “has never stopped inventing, bounding back—and surprising.
Indeed, some pieces like Die große Nacht im Eimer (The Great Night Is Buggered), 1962-1963, even
succeeded in creating a scandal. However, what has affected the art scene continually since 1969
as an illustrious provocation is Baselitz’s ‘inverting’ of images. The German artist paints, draws and
engraves his subjects upside down…” Whereas “Baselitz had always worked in oil and on canvases
set up vertically, employing a color-pigment with a very strong presence that was posed, scratched
(occasionally), and reapplied… the turning point of 1995-1996… marked a decisive break in his
technique. From then on, he would execute his paintings—usually large-format works—laid out on
the floor, without a stretcher, in a fluid, agile manner that suggests washes, even watercolor, all the
while stressing line.” Taken from an album of family photographs, a group of works “proves
exemplary in embodying this new ‘pictorial method’ in the service of an unexpected narrative and
illustrative vein… Father, mother, brothers and sister and their painted likenesses now came to echo
the self-portraits painted by one Georg Baselitz… save when they were all brought together for a
large history painting (a history of the family and of art at one and the same time), witness… We Visit
the Rhine (1996)…” It is certainly tempting to compare this discourse, which energetically blends
3
fluid narrative, color and sketching in the work of a Baselitz who is a sincere admirer of Eugène
Leroy, with painting that is loaded “with battles, thick coats of paint and saturations” which
submerge figure in the painting of the Leroy, the Master of Tourcoing.
The present show is based on a principle of comparative and contrasting views of Georg Baselitz
and Eugène Leroy, of narrative and condensation, the former asserting a strong presence of the
figurative in his series of portraits from 1996 to 1998 (never previously exhibited together), whereas
the latter increasingly concealed figure—in paintings coming largely from the Eugène Jean and JeanJacques Leroy Bequest. The interest of the present show also lies in the accompanying catalogue
that notably features Rainer Michael Mason’s interview with Baselitz, in which the artist speaks quite
freely and vividly about not only Leroy but also his own work, sharing his thoughts on art and a
certain number of artists who drive his own research.
Extracts from the catalogue Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy, Narrative and Condensation, foreword by Evelyne-Dorothée
Allemand, interview with Georg Baselitz, texts by Rainer Michael Mason (French, English), Paris, co-published by Somogy and
MUba Eugène Leroy, 2013, 144 pages.
4
_PRESS RELEASE
This will be the first dialectic encounter between Georg Baselitz and Eugène Leroy, artists for whom
painting itself is the subject. Baselitz, a major figure in the history of contemporary art, has since
1969 painted his models upturned, thus emptying them of their content and allowing painting to
become its own subject. Eugène Leroy forged his identity through painting. His subjects were no
more than a pretext for exploring, through the specific materials and instruments of the painter, what
he called light. Both men try to “uncover the secret of the figurative and non-figurative” in painting,
to expose its “strength and weakness” – that which is visible.
Rainer Michael Mason, exhibition curator:
“Georg Baselitz has for nearly fifty years been the Proteus of German painting, ceaselessly
inventive, fresh – and surprising. Some of his work, such as The Big Night Down the Drain
(1962-1963), has even been controversial. But, since 1969, what has constantly resounded on
the art scene as an illustrious provocation is the inversion of his images: the German artist
paints, sketches and engraves his subjects upside-down.
Baselitz had previously worked using oil on canvas, applying his colours – sometimes
scratched – with a vivid presence, but 1996 was a turning point that saw a break from his
earlier technique. He began to produce his paintings – usually on a very large scale – flat on
the ground, using more fluid and malleable paint suggestive of wash-tint or even water
colours and which places greater emphasis on his drawing skills.
An exemplary series of works taken from a family photo album reveal this new pictorial
method, which Baselitz (born Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony) used that year to give life to an
unexpected bout of illustrative and narrative inspiration. His father, mother, brothers and
sisters are depicted as effigies reminiscent of the artist’s self-portraits, or brought together in
a major work of family (and art) history: We Visit the Rhine (1996).
It was tempting to confront this discourse, in which Baselitz – a sincere fan of Leroy’s work –
energetically combines narrative, colour and disjointed sketches, with the paintings of the
Tourcoing master, haunted by blind sensuality, paintings loaded with conflict, depth and
saturation in which his subjects are immersed.
Baselitz, who is at once an admirer and a critic, feels he is at least one of Leroy’s “inventors”,
having helped give the artist greater visibility in Europe in the early 1980s (with an exhibition at
Michael Werner’s gallery in Cologne). In a major interview published in the exhibition
catalogue, Baselitz speaks in detail about his attachment to this fascinating figure, who
produced strange paintings that are in fact anathema to him.”
Throughout his life, Eugène Leroy ceaselessly strived to understand the relationship between form,
colour and sensations – light. He obstinately sought to detach himself from his subject, from
resemblance and verisimilitude. He tirelessly embedded his subjects in a magma of colour, only to
discover them more truly. His use of light is a paradoxical game between the physical atmosphere of
colour and that which is the realm of personal sensations: “I so regret having drawn painting towards
me, towards life, happiness and everything else, but everything I do – I would almost say since the
very beginning – is a little bit like in chivalric romances, with a character compelled to pursue
adventure, endlessly wandering, with a woman in tow, in an effort to reveal or touch that which
marvels. Well, I would like to touch painting one day. Simply touch it.”
This will be the first time the work of Georg Baselitz has been placed directly alongside that of a
single artist. This exceptional exhibition presents a dialogue between the two men through almost
forty extra-large scale paintings by Baselitz and around 20 of Leroy’s works, mostly taken from the
donation made by Eugène Jean and Jean-Jacques Leroy.
Curator: Rainer Michael Mason
5
_“GEORG BASELITZ – EUGÈNE LEROY I A MEETING WITH NO OTHER
EFFECT THAN A (MAGNIFICENT) EXPANSION OF THE FIELDS OF VISION“
Rainer Michael Mason
“Painters have no business pondering, except brush in hand.”
Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece (1831)
The attraction of something completely different and critical admiration
Art, according to André Malraux, is first of all art of the past. But it is also the art of next door (that is,
the art of one’s contemporaries in whom one sees a father and even more a peer).
While the first statement holds for both Baselitz and Leroy, the second is no doubt truer for Baselitz
alone. Indeed, Baselitz has repeatedly stressed how much the “discoveries” among the artists of his
day and age have counted for him. In this regard, we need only reread some of the initial
declarations from the interview published in the present catalogue. There we find listed as always a
number of the artists Baselitz readily refers to, from Artaud to Picabia, Fautrier or Gruber to Munch.
But Baselitz rightly points out that he has done “paintings not depending on but rather
corresponding with” them, as a Munchian phase from around 1983-1985 makes clear. He adheres to
but does not depend on.1 What I would like to call “attraction” here, just as Greek and Latin
grammars speak of modal attraction, is the first reason for a Baselitz/Leroy show (and this coupling
could be opened up one day to a broader comparison that would include all the artists that Baselitz
quotes or collects).
If Baselitz has never become a follower but rather has cast over all the attractions that have affected
him the unifying net of his own writing, it is because the other artists haven’t proposed or imposed
models so much as reinforced him in the intuition and later certainty that art—his art first and
foremost—is the complete other.2 This “otherness” is deep-rooted and inaugural (in the sense of
making something of it,3 of putting something in motion with which to rebound), and Baselitz seems
to have discerned it in Leroy, for whom he has felt a kind of critical admiration (a matter of
individuation!) that has never waned. “For many years now, almost thirty, I have been [ever] more
enthusiastic about your painting,” wrote Baselitz in a July 1989 letter to Leroy.4 The example of the
American painters Baselitz viewed in 1958 (in Berlin) and 1959 (in Kassel), and of Pollock, never had
a significant effect. On the contrary, he was to reject their prescriptions and, one could argue, cast
his lot in with the European—figurative—tradition, at the risk of reforming it.
As early as 1961, when his temperament inclined him more to Besserwisserei and he liked to take
others to task, Baselitz, impressed by Leroy the unknown, the outsider, realized that “his paintings
constituted an altogether different phenomenon.” He was even to insist that “what struck you in
Leroy’s work was the look of his paintings—completely different.” This was so because Leroy,
according to the metaphors used by Baselitz, produced “congealed mush,” “pigeon droppings,”
“tree bark”—in a word, the materials of a “cave” fairly removed from what one usually takes to be
art.
Baselitz sees in Leroy and his painting the incarnation of The Unknown Masterpiece, the tale in
which Balzac5 describes a being who, in an impossible quest, is simultaneously offered and denied.
Yet for all that, Leroy presents neither a model nor an anti-model. Rather he opens up the prospect
1
Reread this, for example: “His contribution was altogether essential. All of these discoveries are part of my work. Hence, the
connection with, the reference to Leroy, Munch or Michaux, or to Artaud and Picabia and… I never stopped justifying that. I
always said, That’s the way it is. Without one being able to—because it doesn’t work with painting—to recognize straightaway
the details and say, Ah, that’s in the style of, a debt to Leroy. You won’t find anything like that in my work. Nor references to
others.”
2
It cannot be excluded that this idea, tinged with phenomenology, fashionable and very likely more widespread in Germany
than elsewhere, is partly rooted in the thinking of the theologian Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) on the numinous.
3
The German turn of phrase, mit der er etwas anfangen kann, is even more eloquent.
4
See p.69 in the exhibition catalogue
5
One need only note that the 1831 Balzacian “caprice,” which Baselitz refers to more than once in speaking of Leroy, in a way
ends with the discovery of a foot: “In a corner of the canvas, as they came nearer, they distinguished a bare foot emerging
from the chaos of color, half-tints and vague shadows that made up a dim, formless fog; but a delicious foot, a living foot!”
And which in 1963 Baselitz took as the subject of his P.D. Füße (Zurich, Crex Collection).
6
of the absence of a model—with a fascination and an attraction-repulsion (I won’t go so far as to
write Haßliebe) that was by then well installed in Baselitz’s work and which reinforced in him the
courage of the completely different.
This obvious fact justifies in turn the direct comparison now conferred in Tourcoing between Baselitz
and “one of [his] great heroes,” an artist he cites “first of all” among the “things that touched [him],
moved [him], engaged [him], that [he] discovered,” and which present him with “a confirmation of
[his] own past,” without making the case for working with history.
An exhibition of irreducible images
The project in Tourcoing aims to show—but is this contradictory?—that while Leroy indeed had a
liberating effect on Baselitz, which naturally gave rise to something of a link, the two painters are
never the hypostasis of one another. Baselitz as much as Leroy remains within an irreducible
difference. And strictly speaking, there is probably no dialogue between the two (is there ever in
fact?).
The works of each of the artists are not balanced here in favor of a parallel theme or timeline, or even
formats that might back each other up. In point of fact, this is a show for which Georg Baselitz
furnishes the text and Eugène Leroy the notes and comments. While what we see of Leroy’s work on
display runs from 1960 to 2000, with an obvious emphasis on the indescribable, heavily impastoed
pieces that constitute its basso continuo and cantus firmus, Baselitz’s contribution is centered on the
family figures from 1996 and 1997.
The show is in fact shaped in an almost polar way. The immersed or indistinct aspect of figure in
Leroy’s work—for which I have chosen the indicial term of condensation—goes its own way
independently of the “thin” transparent painting in Baselitz (whose oeuvre clearly shows “thick”
phases as well), which is deployed here under the banner of narrative. I explore the (incomparable)
parameters of this below.
Thus one can see, even spatially intermingled in the layout of the works, two shows. And as always,
one could indeed point out that the arbitrariness of the comparison (binary or multiple) could just as
well be developed with so many other actors. Hence its inanity. So be it. But this “association” of
Baselitz and Leroy draws in caso on what we might call a “Leroy effect” going back to a very early
date—with verbal echoes at the very least.
Yet the gaze is never “pure” (or free of “static,” ghosts, contaminations, double exposures). The eye
and the mind form a pair. Jeffrey F. Hamburger, in a study of the Middle Ages, points out quite
usefully that “in the image, and along with it the act of seeing… exegesis and reading blend and
unite in one and the same process.”6 A painting is never a closed world, especially since it
associates us with what the painter sees and, above all, “suggests that the view takes precedence
over what one hears,”7 or can read. Seeing is a “synesthetic” act spiritually and practically, an act
that is free of invention. In Rome we see Corot. In Corot’s pictorial matter we perceive the light of
Rome. Not to mention reminiscences and projections that amplify or mar. The phenomenon of
enrichment (or “distraction”) that occurs when one passes from one painting to another while visiting
a strictly monographic show (from Picasso to Picasso) is no less at work in a group or thematic show
(from Picasso to Matisse or from cubist Braque to cubist Picasso).
The exhibition of two painters, by what it brings together and discards, always offers in itself a series
of paratexts for one and the other, i.e., an accompanying collection of scripto-visual messages or
commentaries; on the other hand, a single painting also harbors in itself a hypertext system
containing “nodes” that refer via hyperlinks to other nodes (and/or relays). The proliferation of
possibilities is amplified here by the fact that the painting concentrates in itself so many dyads,
including, for example, concealment/revelation, opening/closure, opposition/conjunction,
contrast/independence, or juxtaposition/dissociation.
This dialectic of the illumination or extension of the same by the other is not new. We need only think
of the dual carved-ivory panels of consular diptychs beginning in the fourth century, or all the
polyptychs throughout art history, whose many effects—doubling, rebounding, trailing off into the
distance—deepen both real and imaginary space. The image expands thanks to the area around it.
6
Jeffrey F. Hamburger, OUVERTURES | La double page dans les manuscrits enluminés du Moyen Age. Dijon and Lyon: Les
presses du réel/Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2010, p. 30. I owe a number of very stimulating, albeit oblique, perspectives to
this lecture centered on double images in medieval codices.
7
Hamburger, OUVERTURES, p. 40.
7
And one sees that the image is always less extravagant than the text, than all that can be said or
written. In a word, bringing together Baselitz/Leroy, which, at this writing, remains to be discovered
concretely on the walls of the Tourcoing Museum, is as unwarranted in its necessity as it is
promising in its eventuality.
Beyond that, the Baselitz/Leroy diptych being proposed in Tourcoing furtively balances two
geographically associated ways of considering and practicing painting—though probably with the
poles inverted. Briefly, one can argue that Baselitz is the most French of German painters and Leroy
is at the very least one of the most Northern (or Flemish) of French painters.
Baselitz, more than most, has emphasized the operation of painting (one could also speak of
practice or even style, but above all there is “method,” as he himself says), to the point of cultivating
“painting-painting” (designation coined by Eugenio d’Ors), even if the German artist himself never
employs the term. Before focusing on content and formulation (the German Aussage), Baselitz
makes use of the medium that determines the message.8 For him, primacy lies in the “plastic fact.”
Isn’t that a French dimension (especially since he was able to affirm that such and such of his own
works were almost French paintings)?9 This French vein clearly runs through his painting style, if we
consider, for example, Russische Frauenliebe (Love of Russian Women) from 1960, an early painting
that partakes in a way of the pictorial tradition of Manet. The absence of pathos or tremendum is
more of a trait to be found in French painting (thus Baselitz initially “made Gruber a German).10
As for Leroy, by renouncing all in all the “formality” of painting and what it allows one to recognize,
pushing the rejection of style to the point of “a kind of absence almost, so that painting is completely
itself,”11 emphasizing a taste for pleasurable emotion buried in the sediments of painting which some
lend to Flanders, and dreaming of Rembrandt and the look of the “sinkage” affecting his paintings,
the French artist established himself, it seems, far from the measured thinking and craft à la
française.
Extract from the catalogue Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy. Narrative and Condensation, foreword by Evelyne-Dorothée
Allemand, interview of Georg Baselitz, texts by Rainer Michael Mason (French, English), Paris, co-published by Somogy and
MUba Eugène Leroy, 2013, 144 pages.
8
Baselitz, however, as far as I know, has never resorted to McLuhan’s famous phrase.
To the author, in “Georg Baselitz parle de Gruber (et de la scène alentour),” Francis Gruber · L’œil vif, exhibition catalogue,
ed. Claire Stoullig. Nancy: Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2009 | Lyon: Fage éditions, 2009, p. 10.
10
Stoullig, Francis Gruber, p. 13.
11
Eugène Leroy, interview with Irmeline Leeber, Eugène Leroy : peinture, lentille du monde. Brussels: Editions Leeber
Hossmann, 1979, p. 69.
9
8
_“THIS WAY AND THA T IN EUGÈNE LE ROY (AND GEORG BASELITZ)“
Georg Baselitz in conversation with Rainer Michael Mason
Buch am Ammersee, 23 May 2013
The opening shot was simple. When had Baselitz first heard of Eugène Leroy?
“I had never heard of him before seeing him. Initially, I saw his paintings. I was in Paris for our
research trip. I can’t remember if it was in ’58, ’59 or maybe ’60, because I was in Paris each year.12
So, during one of my first trips, I saw a show featuring Leroy’s paintings at the Claude Bernard
Gallery,13 on rue des Beaux-Arts.14 To give a quick idea of the context, that was the time of the New
Realists, as well as the School of Paris still, with Manessier, Fautrier, etc. The New Realists were
already busy at Iris Clert’s gallery.15 And Leroy, in that context, was an outsider,16 since his paintings
constituted an altogether different phenomenon from what I’ve just mentioned.
I found Leroy because I was looking, I was on a voyage of discovery, I wanted to find something
which I had had no idea of before. And so I found all those things, including the early works of
Fautrier and Artaud, Michaux’s work too—all discoveries made in Paris. At the time there was a very
lively art scene and thousands of galleries, all of which we went through on foot—by comparison
with the incomparably poor living conditions in our land.17
I discovered Picabia as well in that period, probably the same year at the Furstenberg Gallery,18
where I wanted to buy everything but didn’t have the money. Everything was so wonderful.
What struck you in Leroy’s work was the look of his paintings—completely different. He painted very
very thickly, so much so that I thought the paintings had been stored on the floor of a dovecote.
They were simply piled up with bird droppings. You suspected there was an objective reality,19 but
you didn’t really see it. And to this day I still haven’t managed to. To tell the truth, you see figuration,
maybe a figure, vaguely sketched out, not in obscurity, however, though quite simply without
contours, without contrasts, it’s a congealed mush. It’s the attempt—Balzac’s Unknown Masterpiece
springs immediately to mind—to make paintings in another way.”
(...)
“Leroy’s paintings are negative reliefs. The thicker they become, the less plasticity they have. They
always turn more inward oddly enough, such that if you want to discover figuration, you have to
squint, sort of look behind the appearance of the mass of paint, the lumps of paint, the clots. You
can better sense them from the inside, as it were. Actually, you enter a cave when you look into one
of those pictures. In painting, it’s a pretty rare phenomenon and one that possibly can never be
positive. For a canvas serves as a support for an idea, a realization, an object or the demonstration
of an object. Something is performed through an application. Leroy is trying tentatively to burrow
into something.”
Leroy and Baselitz will be shown together in Tourcoing. Baselitz doesn’t immediately or
directly tackle the point.
“I’ve also collected him… I had works… have them still. All of those things that touched me, moved
me, engaged me, that I discovered, I tried later, when I could afford it, to buy them. And I did.
Among them there was first of all Leroy, there was Fautrier, Picabia and so on. Truth be told, that’s
sufficient proof of my interest. And today, when I go through an art fair, museums, or other venues,
I’m elated if I can stand in front of a Leroy. That moves me most deeply, I find that magnificent. But
that also harbors obviously a confirmation of my own past. That’s not without its share of vanity.
That’s how it is.”
12
It would indeed seem that Baselitz’s first trip to Paris was in July 1961.
Opened in 1957 at its current address, rue des Beaux-Arts 7-9, by its current director, Claude Bernard Haim.
14
This show was held in 1961.
15
Iris Clert (1918-1986), an avant-garde gallery owner who ran a gallery bearing her name from February 1956 to 1962 at 3,
rue des Beaux-Arts, in Paris.
16
Außenseiter.
17
GB engages in a bit of wordplay here: im Verhältnis (by comparison) followed by Verhältnisse (conditions, circumstances).
18
Apparently the Furstenberg Gallery only began operations in 1970. Did Baselitz go to another gallery where the Furstenberg
now stands in the 6th arrondissement, for example the Jean Chauvelin Gallery, which was once located there?
19
Gegenständlichkeit.
13
9
(...)
“I’m riddled with doubts. And that’s what gives me no rest, drives me, pushes me constantly to
begin something else or to expand… and so really keeps me on edge. I can never say, “That’s it
now, let’s go!” I’ll say that today and tomorrow I’ll question it. It’s something completely different in a
Leroy. In his work there’s that contemplative manner. Which is not mine. I didn’t really get it from
him.”
Does something exist between Leroy and the final paintings, the black series, from the winter
of 2012-2013, where suddenly form vanishes into something new?
“Yes… but that too isn’t right. At first glance, you’re succumbing to outer appearance there. My
paintings are black now and they are made up of structures, textures, thick and thin masses of color,
glossy and mat brushstrokes, etc. That as well isn’t seen in Leroy’s work. Leroy does tree bark. You
can really feel it, you can scrape it off.
For example, Leroy didn’t work slowly as in The Unknown Masterpiece, but relatively quickly, the
way one normally works, and in order to allow the paint to dry more quickly and not drip down on
the floor, he always poked little holes in that heap of colors with the end of the paintbrush.
Everything’s pricked as if by a nuthatch going down tree trunks looking for worms. The small piles of
paint are all pricked with the end of the brush: pick, pick, pick, so that they dry.”
Extracts from the catalogue Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy. Narrative and Condensation, foreword by Evelyne-Dorothée
Allemand, interview of Georg Baselitz, texts by Rainer Michael Mason (French, English), Paris, co-published by Somogy and
MUba Eugène Leroy, 2013, 144 pages.
_EXHIBITION LAYOUT
•
•
•
The entire exhibition will be housed in the museum’s two large display rooms, measuring
1,000m2 (blue)
The permanent collections are being re-examined for the occasion in a dynamic 5-room
display (red)
Eugène Leroy Laboratory I Donation Area (yellow)
10
_BIOGRAPHIES
GEORG BASELITZ
1982
Intensive work on sculptures.
1983
Major compositions Nachtessen in Dresden [Dinner in Dresden]
and Die Brückechor [The Brücke Chorus].
Teaches at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin (until 1988, and
from 1992 until 2003).
Retrospectives in London, Amsterdam and Basel.
Takes part in the Expressions-New Art in Germany exhibition at
the Saint Louis Art Museum (USA).
1985
The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris holds a retrospective
exhibition of his prints.
1988
Der Weg des Erfindung exhibition [The Way of Invention] at the
Städel Museum in Frankfurt, sets Baselitz’ early works against his
recent sculptures. Continues the Volkstanzbilder [Folk Dance
paintings] and Das Motiv series [The Motif].
Georg Baselitz in his studio – Photo: © Benjamin Katz
1938
Hans-Georg Bruno Kern born on 23 January in Deutschbaselitz
(Saxony).
1990
Michael Werner publishes the artist’s book Malelade (poems and
41 etchings).
1956
Studies art at the East Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. Expelled after
just two semesters in 1957 for “socio-political immaturity”, he
continues his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in West Berlin.
1991
Begins the series of 39 Bildübereins [One Picture Over Another].
1993
Designs the set for Harrison Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy at the
Amsterdam Opera.
Takes part in the Venice Biennale with the Männlicher Torso
sculpture, accompanied by oversized drawings.
1961
Starts using the name Baselitz, borrowed from the village in which
he was born.
1963
First solo exhibition at the Galerie Werner & Katz in Berlin. Two of
his works Die grosse Nacht im Eimer [The Big Night Down The
Drain] and Der nackte Mann [Naked Man] cause a scandal and are
confiscated. The court case ends in 1965, when the paintings are
returned.
1995
First major retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York, LACMA
in Los Angeles, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and the
Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
1996
Large-scale family portrait Wir besuchen den Rhein [We Visit the
Rhine].
Wide-ranging retrospective at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville
de Paris.
1964
Spends time at Wolfsburg Castle (Lower Saxony), experimenting
with etching.
1966
Begins creating fracture-paintings, in which the space portrayed is
divided into horizontal bands, breaking the unity of the image.
1998
Creates two monumental paintings for the new Reichstag in Berlin.
1969
First inverted painting Der Wald auf dem Kopf [The Wood on its
Head]. Turning the subject matter upside down would henceforth
be a key feature of his work.
2001
Historic portraits in the style of Arcimboldo and portraits of Stalin.
2002
Circular paintings.
Belle Haleine monumental linocut series.
1970
First museum exhibition in the Kupferstichkabinett at the
Kunstmuseum in Basel.
At the same time, Franz Dahlem holds the first exhibition of
paintings with inverted images at the Cologne art fair.
2003
Series of large-format double portraits.
2005
Begins the Remix series.
1972
Takes part in documenta 5 in Kassel.
Finger-painting.
2007
Baselitz exhibits with Emilio Vedova in the Venetian pavilion at the
Venice Biennale.
1974
First prints retrospective at Leverkusen and first annotated
catalogue.
2009
Mrs Lenin and the Nightingale series.
1977
First large-scale linocuts. Withdraws his paintings from documenta
6 in Kassel to protest against the presence of official GDR
painters.
2010
Illustrates the October 1 edition of Die Welt newspaper to mark the
20th anniversary of German reunification.
1978
Large-format polyptychs.
2011
Start of the Herfreud Grüssgott series.
Exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
1980
18-panel Strassenbild polyptych [Street Picture].
Exhibiting alongside Anselm Kiefer, in the German pavilion at the
Venice Biennale, he presents his first sculpture, Modell für eine
Skulptur, which causes a scandal.
Baselitz lives and works near Ammersee (Lake Ammer, Bavaria)
and Imperia, on the Italian Riviera.
1981
Orangenesser [Orange Eaters] and Trinker [Drinkers] series.
First exhibition in New York.
11
EUGÈNE LEROY
1958
Moves to the town of Wasquehal, near Lille.
Discovers Proust at the age of 48.
1959
Creates stained glass for the Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Flots in
Dunkirk.
1960-63
Collaboration with the Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris. Georg
Baselitz and Michael Werner discover Leroy’s paintings at an
exhibition in 1961.
1964
Begins working in etching.
Eugène Leroy in his studio – Photo: ADAGP, Paris © Marina Bourdoncle
1965
Exhibits at the Galerie Kaleidoscop in Ghent and Harvard
University, Cambridge, USA.
1910
Born on 9 August in Tourcoing, France
1968
Begins working with acrylic and watercolour on paper.
1911
His father dies when he is just one year old
1970
Exhibits at the Galerie Veranneman in Brussels and the Wiener
Secession in Vienna.
1927
Begins painting. First signed drawing entitled Le Jeune homme à
la vitre [Young Man at the Window].
1971
Exhibits at the Galerie Nord, Lille.
1929
On returning home from a trip to Rome, falls ill with pleurisy which
affects him until 1932
1972
Travels to New York and Washington, where he is impressed by
the work of Rothko
Meets Jan Hoet during this trip.
1931
Studies at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Lille and Paris. Gradually
abandons lessons.
1974
Travels to Leningrad and Moscow, where he is amazed by the
Alexis icon in the Tretyakov Gallery.
1933
Marries Valentine. They move to the Belgian Ardennes for two
years.
1977
Exhibits at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Lille.
1934
Birth of their first son, Eugène Jean, known as Géno.
1978
Exhibits at the Galerie Jean Leroy in Paris.
1935
Move to Croix, near Roubaix, where he teaches.
1979
Exhibits at the FIAC, Galerie Jean Leroy.
Valentine dies during the month of December.
1936
First of many trips to Flanders and the Netherlands. Discovers
Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride. Sees works by Malevitch for the first
time.
1980
Exhibits at the K. à Washington, USA.
1981
Exhibits in the Poudrière (powder magazine) of the Arsenal at the
4th Biennial in Gravelines.
1937
First exhibition at the Galerie Monsallut in Lille.
1943
Solo exhibition at the Galerie Else Clausen in Paris.
1982
Retrospective organized by Jan Hoet at the Museum van
Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent.
1944
Birth of their second son, Jean-Jacques.
1983
First exhibition at the Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne.
Exhibits at Galerie Ascan Crone in Hamburg, Galerie Winter in
Vienna and Galerie Springer in Berlin.
1946-48
Creates a mural painting, Crucifixion (27m2) for the Notre-Damedes-Victoires college chapel in Roubaix.
1985
Exhibits in New York at the Thorp Gallery.
1951
Meets Pierre Loeb (in Paris), who purchases around ten of his
canvases.
1986
Meets Marina Bourdoncle.
1952
Travels to Italy and Germany; discovers Giorgione’s Madonna and
Child while staying in Castelfranco in Veneto.
1987
Retrospective at the Musée d’art moderne in Villeneuve d’Ascq.
1956
Travels to Spain and Italy. Marvels at a painting by Van der Goes
at the Uffizi in Florence.
First solo exhibition at the Musée de Tourcoing, organized by
Jacques Bornibus.
Exhibits with Eugène Dodeigne at the Galerie Creuze in Paris.
1988
Eugène Leroy retrospectives at the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum,
Eindhoven and the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris.
1957
Awarded the Emile-Othon Friesz prize. Participates in the Salon de
Mai in Paris until 1968.
Exhibitions at the Musées des Beaux-arts in Dunkirk and
Tourcoing.
1990
Exhibits at the Galerie Rudolph Springer, Berlin.
Retrospective of the artist’s drawings at the Musée Sainte-Croix in
Poitiers.
1989
Exhibits at the Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne.
12
1991
Takes part in the 11th Sao Paulo Biennial.
Exhibits at the Galerie France in Paris, the Magnus Fine Arts in
Ghent and the Galerie Protée in Paris.
1992
Takes part in documenta IX in Kassel.
1993
Eugène Leroy retrospective at the Musée d’art contemporain in
Nice.
Le Concert champêtre [Pastoral Concert] is featured in the
“Copier Créer” exhibition at the Louvre in Paris.
Exhibits at the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne and the Maison
de la Culture, Namur.
1994
Exhibits at the Galerie Protée, Toulouse, at “Pli selon Pli” in Plieux,
and the Galerie Daniel Blau in Munich.
1995
Invited to the Venice Biennale Identity & Alterity.
1996
Awarded Grand Prix National de la Peinture.
Exhibits at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the
Domaine de Kerguéhennec in Bignan, at the Centre d’art Espace
Lumière, Hénin-Beaumont and the Galerie Michael Werner in
Cologne.
1997
Exhibits at the Kunsthalle Basel and the Centre Van Gogh in SaintRémy-de-Provence.
1998
Exhibits at the Boukamel Contemporary Art Gallery in London,
Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne and Galerie de France in Paris.
1999
Exhibits at the Galleri Bo Bjerggaard in Copenhagen.
Visits the exhibition devoted to Rembrandt’s self-portraits in The
Hague.
2000
Exhibits at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (USA).
Dies on May 10 at home in Wasquehal.
Retrospective in July at the Kunstverein in Düsseldorf.
2002
Exhibition at the Galerie Bruno Mory, Besanceuil.
13
_LIST OF WORKS EXHIBITED
GEORG BASELITZ
1. Schwester Rosi I [Sœur Rosi I], 1995
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
15. Elke 1965, 1996
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection particulière
2. Schwester Rosi II [Sœur Rosi II], 1995
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
16. Elke 1945, 1996
Huile sur toile
230 x 165 cm
Collection particulière
3. Selbstporträt II [Autoportrait II], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
18. Uccello Vogel [Uccello oiseau], 1996
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection particulière
4. Bruder Günter I [Frère Günter I], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
19. Wir daheim [Nous à la maison], 1996
Huile sur toile
300 x 400 cm
Küppersmühle Museum, Duisburg, Allemagne
5. Bruder Günter II [Frère Günter II], 1995
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
20. Wir besuchen den Rhein I [Nous visitons le Rhin I],
1996
Huile sur toile
300 x 415 cm
Collection particulière
6. Vater Johannes [Père Johannes], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
21. Wir besuchen den Rhein II [Nous visitons le Rhin II],
1997
Huile sur toile
300 x 450 cm
Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Autriche
7. Vater Johannes [Père Johannes], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
22. Meine gelbe Periode II [Ma période jaune II], 1997
Huile sur toile
200 x 162 cm
Collection particulière
8. Vater Johannes wie Hermann Hesse [Père Johannes]
comme Hermann Hesse], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
23. Meine gelbe Periode III [Ma période jaune III], 1997
Huile sur toile
200 x 162 cm
Würth Museum, Künzelsau, Allemagne
9. Mutter Lieselotte 1946 [Mère Lieselotte 1946], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
24. No objektiv nee [Pas objectif non], 1997
Huile sur toile
400 x 293 cm
Collection particulière
10. Selbstporträt mit blauem Fleck [Autoportrait à la tache
bleue], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris
25. No objektiv nee nee [Pas objectif non non], 1997
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection particulière
11. Bruder Günter III [Frère Günter III], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection particulière
26. Frühes Selbstporträt [Autoportrait précoce], 1997
Huile sur toile
300 x 250 cm
Collection particulière
12. Bruder Andreas im Kinderwagen, [Frère Andreas
dans le landau], 1996
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Küppersmühle Museum, Duisburg, Allemagne
27. Porträt Einwohner [Portrait habitant], 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Collection particulière
28. Pullover oben [Chandail en haut], 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Argenta, Munich, Allemagne
13. Mein Vater sieht einen Engel [Mon père voit un
ange], 1996
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection particulière
29. Portrait mit Untermieter [Portrait avec souslocataire], 1997
Huile sur toile
200 x 162 cm
Collection particulière
14. Johann tanzt und meine Mutter [Johann danse et
ma mère], 1996
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection particulière
14
30. Porträt einer Vase [Portrait d’un vase], 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Collection particulière
31. Zweites Porträt einer Vase [Deuxième portrait d’un
vase], 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Collection particulière
32. Selbstporträt Dummkopf [Autoportrait benêt], 1997
Huile sur toile
200 x 162 cm
Collection particulière
33. Wir zu Pferd I [Nous à cheval I], 1997
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection particulière
34. Wir zu Pferd II [Nous à cheval II], 1997
Huile sur toile
400 x 298 cm
Collection particulière
35. Lieselotte, 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Collection particulière
36. Drittes Porträt einer Vase [Troisième portrait d’un
vase], 1997
Huile sur toile
260 x 200 cm
Collection particulière
37. Georgs Füße [Les pieds de Georg], 1997
Huile sur toile
146 x 114 cm
Collection particulière
38. Tanz und Kreml [Danse et Kremlin], 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Collection particulière
15
EUGÈNE LEROY
39. Sans titre, 1960
Huile sur toile
350 x 175 cm
Collection particulière
53. Homme d’hiver, 1990
Huile sur toile
130 x 96 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
40. Autoportrait rouge, 1968
Huile sur toile
73 x 54 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
54. Homme au printemps rouge, 1990
Huile sur toile
116 x 89 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
55. Douceur, 1995
Huile sur toile
195 x 97 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Dépôt Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Puteaux
41. Autoportrait, 1970
Huile sur toile
73 x 54 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
42. L'arbre, 1971-1976
Huile sur toile
195 x114 cm
Collection particulière, Paris
56. La Grande blanche, 1995
Huile sur toile
195 x 114 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Dépôt Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Puteaux
43. La famille, 1977
Huile sur toile
146.2 x 114.50 cm
Dépôt MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Musée national d’art moderne, Paris – Dation 2003
57. Deux Grands nus en automne, 1998
Huile sur toile
195 x 130 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Dépôt Musée national d’art moderne, Paris - Dation, 2003
44. Avec l’espace, 1978
Huile sur toile
114 x 195 cm
Collection Isabelle et Bruno Mory
58. L'Été, 1999
Huile sur toile
195 x 130 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Dépôt Musée national d’art moderne, Paris - Dation, 2003
45. Portrait brun, 1979
Huile sur toile
73 x 54 cm
Collection particulière, Paris
59. Nu d'automne, 1999
Huile sur toile
130 x 97 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Dépôt Musée national d’art moderne, Paris - Dation, 2003
46. Le lion, 1970-1980
Huile sur toile
195 x 130 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
60. La famille (Contre-jour), 1935-2000
Huile sur toile
191,1 x 88,5 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
47. Maison rouge, 1968-1982
Huile sur toile
195 x 130 cm
Collection particulière, Courtrai
61. Nu garance, 1999-2000
Huile sur toile
146 x 114 cm
Collection Eugène Jean Leroy, Paris
48. Les cieux s’entrouvrirent, 1982
Huile sur toile
195 x 130 cm
LaM, Villeneuve d’Ascq
49. Eugène et Valentine, 1935-1985
Huile sur toile
100 x 80 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
50. Le cavalier polonais, 1986,
Huile sur toile
195 x 260 cm
Collection Indivision Eugène Leroy, Paris
51. Têtes, 1987
Huile sur toile
92 x 65 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
52. Pour Maxime, 1987-1990
Huile sur toile
162 x 130 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Dépôt Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Puteaux
16
_CATALOGUE
Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy. Narrative and
Condensation
Georg Baselitz has been the ever-changing Proteus of
German painting for nearly fifty years. He has never
ceased to invent, rebound – and surprise. A number of
works, such as The Big Night Down The Drain (19621963) have even caused a scandal. However, what has
resonated on the art scene since 1969, as an ongoing
and celebrated provocation, is his inversion of the
image: the German artist paints, draws and etches his
subjects upside down.
By the end of 1996, a group of works inspired by an
album of family photographs provides the form for a light
and flowing new pictorial method. Which, in parallel,
shows a preference for drawing, used in the service of
an unexpected illustrative and narrative vein. Whether
alone, or grouped in the style of monumental history
paintings (in this case both family and art), the effigies of
father, mother, brothers and sister echo self-portraits by
Georg Baselitz (born Kern, in 1938, in Deutschbaselitz,
Saxony).
It was tempting to confront this discourse and its energetic combination of unrestrained narrative,
colour and sketches, with the battle-ridden painting, saturated by layer upon layer of paint, from
which the figure emerges in the work of Eugène Leroy (1910–2000), haunted by a blind sensuality.
In a key interview, published in this catalogue, Georg Baselitz talks at length about his appreciation of
this fascinating artist, who condenses the full range of his experience into the mantle of strange and
incomparably powerful painting, as if anchored in the earth’s gravity, which is in complete contrast to
his own work. When he discovered Leroy’s work in Paris in around 1961, the paintings nevertheless
reinforced in Baselitz, the power of drift and the belief in the ‘entirely other’ as driving forces of art.
This is the only clear link between Leroy and Baselitz. A sincere champion of Leroy, at once admiring
and critical, Baselitz does nonetheless see himself as one of the “inventors” of the Master of
Tourcoing. He contributed, in particular, to enhancing his fellow artist’s European visibility in the early
1980s.
This first dialectical encounter between Georg Baselitz and Eugène Leroy confirms that the subject of
both artists’ work is painting. Both, in their own way, empty the image of its content and allow
painting itself to become the subject. Each of them explores and tests where its strengths and
weaknesses lie, what could be described magnificently as the visible.
[RMM]
Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy. Narrative and Condensation
Foreword by Evelyne-Dorothée Allemand, interview with Georg Baselitz, text by Rainer Michael Mason (French,
English)
Paris, co-published by Somogy and MUba Eugène Leroy, 2013
144 pages
70 couloured illustrations
23x30 cm
Retail price: 22 €
17
_ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
CULTURAL PROGRAMME
> At the MUba Eugène Leroy l Tourcoing
MUSIC
FIRST PARTNERSHIP WITH THE LILLE OPERA: This first partnership is giving rise to a concert by
the ICTUS Ensemble — in residence at the Opera — at the MUba. The MUba has also been
approved for three contemporary music concerts, scheduled within the framework of the Wednesday
Concerts at the Opera, with reduced prices.
CONCERT
In co-production with LILLE OPERA
Wolfgang Rihm
Musik für drei Streicher
For a string trio (violin, viola, cello).
ICTUS Ensemble
NEW: Le Théâtre de Séraphin [Seraphim’s Theatre] by Antonin Artaud, with etchings by Baselitz and
an unreleased score by Wolfgang Rihm, 2003 will be presented on this occasion.
Friday 31 January 2014 > 8 pm
CONCERT
In co-production with the ATELIER LYRIQUE
Théodore Dubois and Francis Poulenc
Mélodies d'amour [Melodies of Love]
Marc Boucher: Baritone
Olivier Godin: piano
Friday 14 February 2014 > 8 pm
CONCERT
In partnership with the TOURCOING JAZZ FESTIVAL 2013 12>19 October 2013
Edouard Ferlet Think Bach
Saturday 19 October 2013
CONCERT
In partnership with the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Départemental Tourcoing
Electro Tango Concert
Sunday 9 January 2014
Series of piano concerts
Sunday 9 February 2014
CONCERT
In partnership with the CFMI, (training centre for musicians in schools), Université Lille3 Charles de
Gaulle.
In the MUba Eugène Leroy exhibition rooms, surrounded by the works of Georg Baselitz and Eugène
Leroy, first-year students from the CFMI offer an invitation to discover the exhibition produced using
works exhibited during a workshop between February 17 and 21 2014.
Friday 21 February 2014 > 8 pm
Free entry
THEATRE
THEATRE READING
Laurent Hatat and Julien Gosselin
By the Anima Motrix company, in partnership with the Théâtre du Nord
Texts by Eugène Leroy and Georg Baselitz
Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th November 2013
18
CINEMA
LE FRESNOY
Film evening – Sigmar Polke
Muba
FILM RELEASE: Eugène Leroy, a film by Marina Bourdoncle – 120mins, prod.
ENCOUNTERS
THURSDAY CONFERENCES
Third Thursday of the month
OCTOBER
Rainer Michael Mason Georg Baselitz-Eugène Leroy, narrative and condensation :
Thursday 17 October > 7 pm
NOVEMBER, DECEMBER 2013, JANUARY, FEBRUARY 2014
Programme still to be finalized
STUDY DAYS
Two days: 26 Nov. 2013 at the Muba, 27 Nov. 2013 at the LaM
In partnership with the LaM (Lille Métropole museum of modern art, contemporary art and Art
Brut), the Centre d’étude des arts contemporains, Université de Lille3 – Département Arts
Plastiques in Tourcoing, Ecole Supérieure d’Art Tourcoing-Dunkirk
Programme still to be finalized
ROUND TABLE
In partnership with Citéphilo Le faux en art [The false in art]
Based on the exhibition Georg Baselitz - Eugène Leroy, Narrative and Condensation
Material and the figure in the work of Eugène Leroy and Georg Baselitz
19
_ PRESS VISUALS
The MUba Eugène Leroy provides the Press with a series of visuals for use within the framework of
the exhibition Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy. Narrative and Condensation from 11 October 2013
to 24 February 2014. Please include the following captions and credits.
GEORG BASELITZ
1. Schwester Rosi II [Sœur Rosi II], 1995
Huile sur toile
290 x 205 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : Frank Oleski
2. Johann tanzt und meine Mutter [Johann danse et ma mère], 1996
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
3. Elke 1965, 1996
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
4. Elke 1945, 1996
Huile sur toile
230 x 165 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
5. Wir besuchen den Rhein I [Nous visitons le Rhin I], 1996
Huile sur toile
300 x 415 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
20
6. Meine gelbe Periode III [Ma période jaune III], 1997
Huile sur toile
200 x 162 cm
Würth Museum
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
7. No objektiv nee nee [Pas objectif non non], 1997
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
8. Porträt einer Vase [Portrait d’un vase], 1997
Huile sur toile
250 x 200 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : Jochen Littkemann
9. Selbstporträt Dummkopf [Autoportrait benêt], 1997
Huile sur toile
200 x 162 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : Jochen Littkemann
10. Wir zu Pferd I [Nous à cheval I], 1997
Huile sur toile
400 x 300 cm
Collection de l’artiste
© Georg Baselitz, 2013
Photo : DR
21
EUGÈNE LEROY
1. Autoportrait rouge, 1968
Huile sur toile
73 x 54 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
© Muba Eugène Leroy, 2013
Photo : DR
2. Autoportrait, 1970
Huile sur toile
73 x 54 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009© Muba Eugène Leroy, 2013
Photo : DR
3. Le Lion, 1970-1980
Huile sur toile
195 x 130 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
© Muba Eugène Leroy, 2013
Photo : DR
4. Eugène et Valentine, 1935-1985
Huile sur toile
100 x 80 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
© Muba Eugène Leroy, 2013
Photo : DR
5. Têtes, 1987
Huile sur toile
92 x 65 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
© Muba Eugène Leroy, 2013
Photo : DR
6. La Famille (Contre-jour), 1935-2000
Huile sur toile
191,1 x 88,5 cm
MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing
Donation Eugène Jean et Jean-Jacques Leroy, 2009
© Muba Eugène Leroy, 2013
Photo : DR
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_USEFUL INFORMATION
OPENING HOURS
Open every day
From 1pm to 6pm
Except Tuesdays and bank holidays
MANAGEMENT
Evelyne-Dorothée Allemand,
Head Curator
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 61
edallemand@muba-tourcoing.fr
Nathalie Delbarre
Managerial assistant
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 63
ndelbarre@muba-tourcoing.fr
EUGENE LEROY DONATION l EXHIBITION
Yannick Courbès
Assistant Curator
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 65
ycourbes@muba-tourcoing.fr
COMMUNICATIONS l PATRONAGE
Quentin Réveillon
T. +33 (0)3 20 23 33 59
qreveillon@ville-tourcoing.fr
PUBLIC SERVICES
Suéva Lenôtre
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 64
slenotre@muba-tourcoing.fr
ADMINISTRATION
Laure Perret
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 62
lperret@muba-tourcoing.fr
PRICES
Full price: €5
Discounted price: €3
Discounted price applies to:
- 18-25 year olds
- Carte Odyssée holders
- Friends of museums other than MUba
- Unaccompanied groups of 10 or more
- MUba Tourcoing partner works councils
- One-off events partnered by Tourcoing museum
- Cardholders entitled to family discount
- Tourism professionals
Free entry granted to (full list available at www.muba-tourcoing.fr):
- Under 18s
- Tourcoing residents with the "Laissez-passer MUba Eugène Leroy Tourcoing", an annual nominative loyalty
card provided free of charge to residents with proof of address
- Holders of the Pass Lille3000 (www.lille3000.com) or exhibition ticket
- Holders of the “C’ART” (www.lillemap.fr)
MUba
Eugène
Tourcoing
Leroy
I
2, rue Paul Doumer
F-59200 Tourcoing
T. +33 (0)3 20 28 91 60
F. +33 (0)3 20 76 61 57
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contact@muba-tourcoing.fr
www.muba-tourcoing.fr
_EXHIBITION PARTNERS
MUba Eugène Leroy l Tourcoing would like to thank the valuable and loyal commitment of its
partners in supporting the exhibition
Georg Baselitz – Eugène Leroy
Narrative and Condensation
MEDIA PARTNERS
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_LE MUba EUGÈNE LEROY
MUba Eugène Leroy l Tourcoing works within the scope of Lille Métropole’s cultural
development strategy. Thanks to an exceptional donation from Eugène Jean and JeanJacques Leroy, comprising 650 of their father’s works, the museum fully contributes to
reinforcing the range of cultural experiences in the Tourcoing and Lille Métropole area.
A laboratory museum, the MUba Eugène Leroy explores the role of the venue in experiencing works
of art and creates a dialogue, through stylistic and thematic confrontations, between contemporary
art and centuries-old pieces, as well as performing arts and visual arts, while renewing the installation
on a regular basis: this sensitive and aesthetic approach to the artworks examines and fulfils the
requirements of a diverse public, seeking enjoyment, knowledge and education. Following the
donation made by the artist’s sons, the creation of the MUba Eugène Leroy, a certified Musée de
France, reinforces the presence and impact of Leroy’s legacy. It consolidates the image of an
international-scale museum in Lille Métropole.
THE EUGENE LEROY LABORATORY
The spirit of the “Eugène Leroy Laboratory” is both complex and simple. The challenges raised are
complex, while the design itself is simple. Created in 2009, this space, dedicated to physically
housing and restoring the Eugène Jean & Jean-Jacques Leroy Donation, has gradually evolved into a
veritable platform for reflection around the work of Eugène Leroy.
Featuring 45 paintings, 120 drawings, 18 sketchbooks, 13 sculptures, 99 etchings and all the etching
plates, the Donation spans the entire life of the artist. It is the most substantial and coherent
collection of works by this remarkable artist.
The very essence of the Laboratory lies in its capacity to change the installation on a regular basis
and inspire new connections to the individual works. In 2011, an opportunity was offered to view
Eugène Leroy’s work juxtaposed against the work of two young artists, Elsa Tomkowiak and Régis
Perray, during the exhibition Franchement Énervé [Frankly Annoyed] (Transfer France/NRW) and
subsequently alongside Sol Lewitt and James Bishop within the framework of presenting the FNAC
loan during the Collector exhibition. In 2012, the visual battle continued between the Foules [Crowds]
and Self-portraits by Pascale Sophie Kaparis and Leroy’s nudes, in response to a call for drawing and
the body. Pride of place is now being given to flesh, through drawings, etchings and paintings which
echo the light in photographs by Marina Bourdoncle and an extract from the new film, produced with
her brother Yves Loup Bourdoncle.
Thus, artworks are either displayed in a “white cube” style, giving them room to breathe and offering
visitors the time and space for contemplation or in the style of a cabinet of curiosities, offering total
visual freedom, allowing the gaze to wander and linger at will, losing itself in the installation and its
apparent disorder. Like the studio, this is a “bricolage” space, to use the term favoured by Claude
Levi Strauss, a space that is capable of transforming the existing, to establish it symbolically and
visually using the simple materials around it.
MUba Eugène Leroy’s Façade © DR
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_LA C’ART – UNLIMITED MUSEUM ENTRY
On 14 September 2013, the 5 institutions belonging to LilleMAP (Metropolitan Art Programme)
and Lille Métropole are launching “La C'Art” pass for the city-region’s museums.
To enhance public accessibility to the museums within its territory, Lille Métropole and the 5
museums in the Lille MAP network (MUba, Le Fresnoy, the Palais des Beaux Arts, the Piscine and the
LaM) have created a new single pass, "La C’Art"
“La C'Art” offers a year’s unlimited access to the collections and temporary exhibitions at these 5
institutions for only 30 Euros.
To coincide with its launch, “La C'Art” will also provide access to the “Happy Birthday” exhibition
organised by lille3000 at the Tri Postal in Autumn 2013, as well as entitling the holder to preferential
rates for exhibitions at the Louvre-Lens.
With a deliberately accessible pricing policy, “La C’Art” will cost only €30 (€15 up to the age of 26)
with a year’s validity from a specified date. A “duo” package priced at €45 is also available, allowing
the pass-holder to invite a guest of their choice with them every time they visit, thus enabling them to
share their passion. Individuals receiving minimum social benefits will not be charged for the pass.
“La C’Art” will be available from 14 September 2013 from the 5 institutions in the network and online:
www.lacart.fr
A further advantage of “La C’Art” is that it functions using contactless technologies. “La C’Art” will
also be interoperable with Pass Pass, the new Transpole ticketing tool, launched on 25 June last. It is
one of France’s first cultural passes which makes the most of this durable technology and can be
linked to a public transport network.
Lille Métropole boasts an exceptional range of museums. In the 2013 rankings published by the
Journal des Arts, the Lille Palais des Beaux Arts came in as the fifth top museum in cities with over
200,000 residents, after 4 Paris-based institutions. La Piscine in Roubaix, the LaM (Lille Métropole
museum of modern art, Art Brut and contemporary art) in Villeneuve d’Ascq and the MUba, in
Tourcoing, are ranked 1st, 3rd and 16th respectively for museums in towns and cities with populations
of between 20 and 200 thousand. A national contemporary arts studio, unique in France and
recognized throughout the world, Le Fresnoy rounds off the network of institutions in the “Lille MAP”
programme, which has offered a high quality, varied and complementary cultural range since 2009.
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